Business is increasingly performed in networks. These can involve the supply chain, partners, joint ventures and customers. There are many reasons for networked business, such as global access to markets, access to skills, time to market and time to volume production. Sometimes the driver is access to data and information.

Many companies have transformed into system integrators with a majority of the end product created externally. The high level of complexity, number of partners and business speed are challenging the classic model of data exchange in a supply chain and sharing becomes more relevant. Sharing also resonates with the way we communicate in social media.

The new levels of intellectual property captured in Digital Twins and Digital Threads are accompanied by risks. Regulations in Trade Compliance, Export Control and ITAR add complexity. This is relevant in Defense but applies equally between enterprises that value their intellectual property – data is the new oil but it is much easier to copy!

It is vital to drive the Extended Digital Thread towards optimal performance, manageable cost, controlled risk and support for agile business. One needs to assess how internal use can extend to networks, how to enable and at the same time control data exchange and sharing with design partners, manufacturing partners and support partners. In the future we will have vast amounts of valuable intellectual property in digital form connected to Internet. How can we make best use of the cloud, IoT, additive printing, Industrial Internet, systems engineering, block-chain, edge computing etc. and what standards should be in focus?

PDT North America and PDT Europe 2018 will look into strategies, tactics and implementations moving towards the Networked Model Based Enterprise, the Extended Digital Thread and the anticipated and realized risks as well as business benefits.

PDT Europe started in 1992 as a project sponsored by the European Commission and initiated by Prof. Horst Nowaki (Technical University, Berlin) as a communication place for like-minded European specialists in the then emerging field of product data technologies.